Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2003 17:15:57 +0100
Subject: Re:  o/o


  My "Heidegger" folder is stuffed full of the o/o threads.  

One more, Jason, and thank you too. 

Heidegger: What is metaphysics?
http://www.msu.org/e&r/content_e&r/texts/heidegger/heidegger_wm2.html

As surely as we can never comprehend absolutely the ensemble of beings in
themselves we certainly do find ourselves stationed in the midst of beings
that are revealed somehow as a whole. In the end an essential distinction
prevails between comprehending the ensemble of beings in themselves and
finding oneself in the midst of beings as a whole. The former is impossible
in principle. The latter happens all the time in our existence. It does
seem as though we cling to this or that particular being, precisely in our
everyday preoccupations, as though we were completely abandoned to this or
that region of beings. No matter how fragmented our everyday existence may
appear to be, however, it always deals with beings in a unity of the
“whole,” if only in a shadowy way. Even and precisely then when we are not
actually busy with things or ourselves this “as a whole” overcomes us — for
example in genuine boredom. Boredom is still distant when it is only this
book or that play, that business or this idleness, that drags on. It
irrupts when “one is bored.” [es ist einem langweilig] Profound boredom,
drifting here and there in the abysses of our existence like a muffling
fog, removes all things and men and oneself along with it into a remarkable
indifference. This boredom reveals beings as a whole. 
     Another possibility of such revelation is concealed in our joy in the
present existence — and not simply in the person — of a human      being
whom we love. Such being attuned, in which we “are” one way or another and
which determines us through and through, lets us           find ourselves
among beings as a whole. The founding mode of attunement [die
Befindlichkeit der Stimmung] not only reveals beings           as a whole
in various ways, but this revealing — far from being merely incidental — is
also the basic occurrence of our Da-sein. 




This is more than interesting: I just flipped
open Botho Strauss, "Beginnlosigkeit" (An-archy),

(There is much philosophy in this author. 
And science: the steady-state theory,
a world without a beginning)

The ontological is not a thing, no-thing. 
'Something' in German is 'Etwas'
Strauss coins the word: Abwas, no-thing,
Ab-wesen, ab-sence. Abthing

p. 57, my rendering:

"The Abwas is a thing of absence and seemingly
a thing of remembrance. Still its activity is that of a 
the hole of a funnel: it effaces, it abstracts remembrance.
An abthing posesses thousand suckers, is one
worldabsucking plasmodium.

When the abthing effaces every thing: when for instance
a missing person fills out your whole being-there, more
than his presence ever could do.
















-----------------------------------
drs. Rene de Bakker
Universiteitsbibliotheek Amsterdam
Afdeling Catalogisering 
tel. 020-5252368              


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